1. That oil is foreign to begin with – it’s Canada’s not the US’
2. it’s the wrong type of oil – there’s no internal market in the US for this type of oil
3. All of the Keystone XL oil was destined for shipment overseas once processed in Texas

But the best bit is it will make Inhofe’s head explode.

1 – “Free markets work”. This is a vague and meaningless statement within the context of global warming pollution, and an oversimplification suitable for the tea party crowd. The fundamental issue with carbon emissions is that the full cost of environmental damage is externalized from the price of the carbon emitting energy source. So a free market that just searches for the cheapest sources of energy does not necessarily minimize or even reduce the environmental damage caused by that energy. In effect the cost of that energy source (when factoring in the damage to environment) is partially being subsidized — by future generations.

Here’s a ficticious and simple example: Imagine an oil pipeline with a small leak. Imagine this leak is such that, over the entire time of operation of the pipeline, fixing it would cost more than the cost of what is lost in the leak over it’s lifetime, even if the cost of environmental damage due to the leak were to greatly exceed the cost of fixing the leak. Without regulations, what financial incentive would the pipeline operator have to fix the leak? The answer is, of course, exactly none, as fixing the pipeline would always be a losing proposition for the operator. Only under a properly regulated market, where the price of the oil correctly factors in the environmenal damage (acheived through some sort of regulatory framework) would there be financial incentive enough to get the leak fixed.

2 – Saying that the China emits more than the US, therefore we don’t have to do anything more than what we are already doing really won’t get us (globally) far in terms of negotiations to cotrol global co2 emissions. This is just scapegoating. The truth is that we *all* have to make changes. Consider these additional facts, not mentioned in the artice (I won’t bother posting references as the data are readily available):
– While the emissions in china are now in fact greater than ours, the difference is not that great — both china and the US emit, per country, about 1/5 of the world’s co2 emmisions each.
– If you look at co2 emissions per capita, the US emits co2 at almost 3x the level of china. Should we have no responsibility for this whatever?
– If you look at cumulative emissions, since the start of the century the US has emitted way more than china, again by a factor of about 3x. So in terms of the total ‘already done’ damage to the environment the US again has had a much larger impact than China.

I think from that it follows we probably bear a greater responsibility at this point than China as well, and certainly more than what the article suggests, which is apparently to let the free markets work and keep doing what we are already doing….

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2135448/reports-china-tax-carbon-emissions-2015
“State media suggests Beijing is poised to levy a charge on large consumers of coal, crude oil and natural gas”

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions continue to track lower than year 2000 levels, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported on Monday, extending this centuryâ??s downward trend in U.S. emissions. The new data rebut assertions that the United States needs to impose new restrictions on coal-fired power plants and other sources of carbon dioxide emissions.
Interestingly, EIA reports U.S. emissions rose more than 15% during the eight years of the Clinton-Gore administration but have declined since.
The primary reason for emissions remaining on a downward trajectory this century is the increasing number of natural gas-fired power plants. Recent discoveries of immense amounts of natural gas trapped in shale rock, coupled with the development of new technologies to capture and produce such shale gas, are driving natural gas prices down. U.S. power plants currently produce 50% more power from natural gas than during the year 2000. Natural gas power emits approximately 40% less carbon dioxide than coal power. (Natural gas power slashes many other pollutants tracked by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by more than 80%.)
The EIA data reveal three important lessons for our energy economy and global warming concerns.
1.Free markets work. Private sector entrepreneurs and corporations, working in their own financial self-interest, discovered the natural gas and developed the technologies to recover it in an economically productive manner. Top-down government restrictions that stifle economic activity are not the sole or most desirable means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions even if we accept for the sake of argument the assertion that humans are creating a global warming crisis. Private entities have developed the means to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in a manner that benefits our economy.
2.Anti-fracking activists are endangering human health and the environment. Natural gas power emits merely 20% of the carbon monoxide of coal power, 20% of the nitrogen oxides of coal power, less than 1% of the sulfur dioxide of coal power, less than 1% of the particulate matter of coal power and less than 1% of the mercury of coal power. These improvements are in addition to cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 40%. When opponents of the production of natural gas through hydraulic fracturing techniques (also known as fracking) present highly speculative environmental claims unsupported by sound science to shut down natural gas fracking, they are merely serving to increase the emissions of a multitude of pollutants and carbon dioxide. Far from protecting human health and the environment, they are shutting down a vital source of environmental improvement.
3.There is no need for federal or state restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions. Although global carbon dioxide emissions continue to rapidly rise, U.S. emissions continue their 21st century decline. Global emissions have risen by 25% since 2000, while U.S. emissions have declined. Blaming the United States for this rise in global emissions and insisting on dramatic cuts in U.S. emissions is about as logical and effective as losing your car keys during a hike in the woods but looking for them only in your local Starbucks because the light is better there and the amenities are preferable to a search in the middle of the woods.
Moreover, U.S. emissions restrictions would have no real-world climate impact. China alone emits more carbon dioxide than the entire Western Hemisphere combined. Chinese emissions are rising at a pace of roughly 10% per year and have more than doubled since 2000. China alone is responsible for 75% of the growth in global emissions since 2000. Even if the United States completely and immediately eliminated all carbon dioxide emissions, in less than a decade China would add more new emissions than what the United States eliminated. Importantly, China has insisted over and over again that it will not accept carbon dioxide restrictions regardless of what the United States and the rest of the world does.
In a world where gloom-and-doom predictions and baseless environmental scares capture media headlines, real-world emissions data argue against jumping off the global warming economic cliff like so many clueless lemmings.